Shield wall
The highest and strongest castle wall is called a shield wall if it is clearly separated from the rest of the surrounding walls. The shield wall serves to secure the main attack side. If a shield wall extended over two or more sides, one also speaks of the high mantle or mantle wall .
description
A clear definitional delimitation from the mantle wall is often not possible. The construction of shield walls became common in the late 12th century and may be seen as a response to the increasing use of heavy siege engines like the Blide . The thickness of a shield wall could be up to twelve meters in extreme cases ( Neuscharfeneck Castle ). A battlement usually ran on the top of the wall , and the shield wall could be surrounded by two towers. In some cases, the curtain wall replaced the castle keep , such as in the Westerwald located Sporkenburg or at the Castle Alt-Eberstein near Baden-Baden . In other cases, for example at Liebenzell Castle , the keep was fitted in the middle of the shield wall.
- Image examples
Shield wall of Berneck Castle in the Black Forest
Shield wall of Amlishagen Castle
Shield wall of the Schönburg near Oberwesel
Shield wall of the Sporkenburg
Shield wall of Liebenzell Castle in combination with the keep
Shield wall of the Wasenburg in Alsace
Shield wall of the Chotyn Castle in western Ukraine
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literature
- Reinhard Friedrich: shield wall. In: Horst Wolfgang Böhme , Reinhard Friedrich, Barbara Schock-Werner (Hrsg.): Dictionary of castles, palaces and fortresses . Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-15-010547-1 , pp. 228-230, doi: 10.11588 / arthistoricum.535 .
- Alexander Antonow: Castles of southwest Germany in the 13th and 14th centuries - with special consideration of the shield wall . Konkordia publishing house, Bühl / Baden 1977, ISBN 3-7826-0040-1 .
- Friedrich-Wilhelm Krahe: Castles of the German Middle Ages - floor plan lexicon . Special edition, Flechsig Verlag, Würzburg 2000, ISBN 3-88189-360-1 , pp. 34–36.
- Friedrich-Wilhelm Krahe: Castles and residential towers of the German Middle Ages. Volume 1: Castles . Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-7995-0104-5 , pp. 33-36;
